1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless endoscope drivable with a battery.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, with progress in semiconductor technology, various kinds of equipment such as cellular phones, smartphones and tablet PCs have been miniaturized, reduced in power consumption, and configured to be portable. Portable equipment is often loaded with a battery and configured to be continuously usable by charging the battery.
Also in a medical field, miniaturization of devices has been accelerated, and in an endoscope of relatively large power consumption for example, a wireless endoscope loaded with a charging type battery has been developed. The wireless endoscope is used in various fields such as the medical field and an industrial field. The wireless endoscope in the medical field is used in observation of organs inside a body cavity, curative treatment using a treatment instrument, endoscopic surgery or the like. Note that, the wireless endoscope is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2009-77875, and the proposal discloses a technology of compatibly preventing battery exhaustion during observation and efficiently utilizing a battery capacity.
A picked-up image obtained by the wireless endoscope is transmitted to a processor that performs image processing. By the processor, a medical image is displayed on a monitor and recorded in a recording medium. The wireless endoscope incorporates a wireless communication portion for transmitting an endoscopic image obtained by an image pickup device to the processor and a light source device for illuminating an object or the like, is wirelessly configured, and is therefore excellent in portability and workability.
When the portability is considered, weight of a battery loaded on the wireless endoscope is limited, and a battery capacity is also limited. Therefore, just by one battery loaded on the wireless endoscope, the wireless endoscope is not always driven in an entire period of a procedure that uses the endoscope. Therefore, it is needed to consider replacement of the battery in a middle of a procedure.